Tuesday, July 6, 2010

The Stones

No, this is not about a rock band. This is about religions that have rocks in their numerous heads.

There can be no justice in a world that stones women to death for ANY reason short of some kind of similar crime done by those women against children. Even in the US where we have the death penalty in many states, it is usually carried out quite reluctantly, by the use of drugs or some other quick method, and very rarely at all upon women, regardless of the insidious nature their crimes.

We are supposedly a "Christian" nation. In the Bible it speaks of stoning harlots and adulterers. The method was not in some manner where the woman is running away and people are pelting her with pebbles. No, the method was to tie the woman to a pillar, or to bury her up to her chest so she is helpless to defend herself, and then to use especially chosen rocks, not so large as to kill her quickly, and not so small as to be merely annoying. The stones would slowly and painfully kill her. I wonder who could proudly throw such rocks at dogs hogtied to a stake, let alone a woman.

For the most part, in the "Christian" world, there has been a reluctance to carry out such sanctions, especially since it takes more than just a woman to be an adulterer or a harlot. There must be partners in her crimes, which even if in need of punishment, has been unfairly apportioned. Either get them both, or let them both be punished in some more fitting manner -- like public humiliation or the like.

We had our Scarlet Letters, our Witch Burnings and other forms of this kind of cruelty, no doubt, but in modern times we have overcome such overt brutalities toward women. At least in the public sector. There are always the woman haters, the murderers and sadists out there that can't get through the day without harming somebody, anybody, especially the innocent.

However, this is happening today in "certain" Islamic countries. It is not an abstraction to talk about over Starbuck's, or in a blog. It is real, it is the Taliban; it is the Iranian Islamic Republic; it is the so called "honor" killings all over the world, carried out by medieval thinkers like Islam's and many other religion's zealots.

And this is only one tiny part of the injustices of the world. It is either a black mark on the truthful nature of religions, or it is simply the impotence or reluctance of any "just" God to intervene on our behalf. Either way, it is a human tragedy.

To Hell with you who believe in such things.